The First Coast Guard District is an appropriate name for the North West Atlantic Coast because many Coast Guard "firsts" happened here.

Lighthouses are common here and many of the country's oldest lights are in the First District. Boston Light was the first lighthouse built in this country, in 1716. Portland Head Light in Maine was the first light built by the new federal government in 1791. Sandy Hook Lighthouse in New Jersey is the oldest original tower operating in the country. The first Fresnel lens used in America was installed at Navasink, New Jersey.

Alexander Hamilton organized the Revenue Cutter Service in 1790 to fight smuggling and enforce tariff laws to help young America's struggling economy. The first Revenue Cutter was built in Newburyport, Mass., and was named the Massachusetts. The cutters that followed served proudly in every national conflict from the Quasi-War with France in 1798 to the Spanish-American War in 1898.

Massachusetts and New Jersey led the country with humanitarian efforts to rescue and comfort victims of shipwrecks. Soon the federal government joined and created the U.S. Lifesaving Service. The service made its first rescue in 1850 when the passenger ship Ayrshire ran aground off the coast of New Jersey. By 1880, a string of stations stretched along the coastline, each station equipped with a rescue boat and surf crew. Joshua James, perhaps the world's most famous lifesaver, was keeper at Point Allerton, in Massachusetts. He is credited with saving more than 600 lives in his 60 year career.

In 1915, Congress combined the Revenue Cutter Service and the Lifesaving Service to form the United States Coast Guard. In 1939, the Lighthouse Service was added as well.
The First District was very active during World War II. Many North Atlantic convoy patrols operated out of Boston and New York. Beach parties patrolled the coast looking for saboteurs. A patrol on Long Island caught four German infiltrators coming ashore in a rubber raft.

In the past 30 years, First District units have been involved in dramatic marine events. The Argo Merchant disaster in 1977 changed the country's pollution response. In August, 1990, six of 27 crew members were lost after the 593-foot freighter Corazon broke up in Hurricane Bertha.

1996 was also an historic year for the First Coast Guard District. It included one of the largest, immediate Coast Guard responses on record when our rescue crews from across the Northeast responded to the ill-fated TWA Flight 800 disaster. First District response crews also cleaned up two of the largest U.S. oil spills in 1996.